Mary Baker Eddy and Ellen White on This Day in History

 

This day in history: Mary Baker Eddy was born on this day in 1821. Ellen G. White died on this day in 1915.

Mary Baker Eddy was an American religious leader and author who founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, (Christian Science) in New England in 1879. 

Ellen Gould White was an American author and co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. 

"There are many resemblances between Ellen G. White and Mary Baker Eddy. Both were semi-invalids as children; both found motherhood difficult and temporarily abandoned their own infants; both found extraordinary reserves of energy for speaking and for religious organization." Source

What is amazing to me is how many women spearheaded religious movements at the time. Mother Ann Lee founded the Shaker movement. The Fox Sisters started Spiritualism. Helena P. Blavatsky founded Theosophy. Aimee Semple McPherson was an important figure in the early Pentecostal movement. Ursula Gestefeld and Emma Curtis Hopkins initiated New Thought. Myrtle Fillmore founded the Unity School of Christianity along with her husband Charles, and Alice Bailey started the Arcane School. Eliza Farnham of Staten Island, founder of the Truth of Woman movement. There was also Alma B. White (Pillar of Fire Church) and Mother Leafy Anderson (Black Spiritualism).

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Scholar Writes Paper Arguing for the "a god" Rendering at John 1:1c

 

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Alexander Smarius has written a paper entitled Another God in the Gospel of John? A Linguistic Analysis of John 1:1 and 1:18 in which he argues for the "a god" translation of John 1:1c.

Here is an excerpt" 

"While many scholars have discussed the intricacies of the traditional translation of 1:1, far less attention has been given to an altogether different interpretation for which the Greek itself also allows. This alternative view, in which 'the Word was a god' – a distinct but completely cooperative deity close to God – has had advocates mainly outside the field of academic scholarship. Although some technical studies admit to the linguistic possibility, it is generally considered impossible within the NT context.

In this paper I argue that there is good reason to explore the linguistic plausibility of the Word as a god close to God. A new analysis of both John 1:1 and 1:18 will show that this alternative interpretation deserves more serious attention than has hitherto been acknowledged."

Read the rest at https://brill.com/view/journals/hbth/44/2/article-p141_2.xml

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Kenneth Taylor and the "Living Bible" on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Kenneth N. Taylor died on this day in 2005. Kenneth Nathaniel Taylor was an American publisher and author, better known as the creator of The Living Bible and the founder of Tyndale House, a Christian publishing company, and Living Bibles International. The Living Bible sold more than 40 million copies and was translated into more than 100 languages.

The main problem with all this is that the Living Bible is not a real Bible, it is a paraphrase. 

"The word 'paraphrase' is used quite commonly in English for restating something in other words. In Bible translation, a paraphrase has the same primary goal as a dynamic equivalence translation -- that is, to make the meaning as plain and understandable as possible for the reader. The idea of making a Bible paraphrase is based upon the notion that the Bible's own phrasing is too difficult for the average reader. In a paraphrase, the translator is able to remove difficult rhetoric, harmonize passages with one

another, and draw out implications for the reader. It is a perfect opportunity to make the Bible consistent with the translator's own theology.

For these reasons, a paraphrase should never be mistaken for a Bible. It should not be packaged as a Bible, sold as a Bible, or used in place of a Bible. It should pass under the name of its author, as a commentary or interpretation of the Bible. When, instead, it is handled as if it is a Bible translation, and the author's name is left off of the title page as if he or she had no role in determining the contents of the book, a terrible deception is happening." Truth in Translation by Jason Beduhn

Taylor acknowledged this in his preface: "There are dangers in paraphrases as well as values. For whenever the author’s exact words are not translated from the Greek, there is a possibility that the translator, however honest, may be giving the English reader something that the original writer did not mean to say. This is because a paraphrase is guided not only by the translator’s skill in simplifying but also by the clarity of his understanding of what the author meant and by his theology. For when the Greek is not clear, then the theology of the translator is his guide, along with his sense of logic, unless perchance the translation is allowed to stand without any clear meaning at all. The theological lodestar in this book has been a rigid evangelical position."

Michael Marlowe criticized this work, saying that it was "the dumbing-down of the Biblical text to a grade-school level" done "in keeping with the linguistic and educational trends of the time." He adds that "very few scholars have given any encouragement to its [The Living Bible] use, and most have either ignored it or have strictly warned against it." Moreover, he claims that the text of The Living Bible contains "venturesome interpretations that no scholar is likely to approve" and that "[i]n several places Taylor brazenly wrests the scripture so as to conform it to Arminian teachings about salvation."

The Living Bible has made some interesting choices in wording. An early edition had "You son of a bitch" at 1 Samuel 20:30.

Also:

"I am just some drunken bum" 1 Samuel 1:16

"You illegitimate bastard" John 9:34

"Come to bed with me my, darling." 2 Samuel 13:11

"The Reluctant Dragon" Isaiah 30:7

"Israeli" at Exodus 9:4;12:34;14:20;19:1 etc. 

"Hell is licking its chops in anticipation" Isaiah 5:14

The original text of the Living Bible is the great American Standard Version of 1901. The ASV correctly had JEHOVAH 7000 times instead of the horrible practice of replacing the name with LORD or GOD. The Living Bible only keeps Jehovah 313 times. 

One case of clear theological bias can be seen at John 1:1. "Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God." This is not even remotely correct, and introduces a contradiction with Christ being WITH God and being "himself God." You can tell a translator's bias by how they treat this one passage.

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Atheist Sam Harris on This Day in History

 

American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host Sam Harris was born on this day in 1967. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion and is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.

Harris was always an interesting thinker to me, but he lost a lot of respect with me when he developed Trump Derangement Syndrome, and then became a Covidiot. (Sam Harris CAN’T ADMIT He Was Dead Wrong About COVID)

Harris "is completely, thoroughly, through-and-through ruined by the hatred of Donald Trump, and so biased that his reasoning cannot be relied upon for anything. It doesn’t matter that he’s a neuroscientist, New York Times best-selling author, a genuine philosopher, and credentialed public intellectual. He’s useless. He’s a fraud. Trustworthy people simply don’t hold such opinions—not only hold them, but eagerly broadcast them. It’s a signature significance orgy!" Source

In his book The End of Faith, Harris wrote: “Some beliefs are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them”. Harris was criticized by Christian apologist Victor Reppert and others for his promotion of the idea that killing people for thought crimes is morally acceptable.

In 2022, Sam Harris said, "Hunter Biden could have had the corpses of children in his basement - I would not have cared." In response, Theodore Beale wrote: "Atheists have no moral anchor. There’s literally nothing there. Their much-vaunted, self-constructed value systems revolve around nothing more than whatever happens to trigger their emotions at any given moment. They are simple creatures of pure appetite and rhetoric. Remember, Sam Harris is supposed to be among the finest, smartest, most highly-refined philosophers that the atheist community has on offer."

The comedian and social commentator Jimmy Dore, who indicates that Sam Harris is an immoral, narcissist, says that he helped cause Harris to angrily quit Twitter in a fit of rage. Since Harris' anti free speech comments and his immoral, political tribalism, a lot of people have lost respect for Harris and called him out on his ill-behavior. Harris blocked them on Twitter before quitting the platform.

Dore also indicated that Harris recently lost a number of debates and now refuses to debate various people.

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Benjamin Hoadly and the Bangorian Controversy on This Day in History

 

Benjamin Hoadly

This Day in History: The Bangorian Controversy started on this day in 1717. The Bangorian Controversy was a theological argument within the Church of England in the early 18th century, with strong political overtones. The origins of the controversy lay in the 1716 posthumous publication of George Hickes's Constitution of the Catholic Church, and the Nature and Consequences of Schism. In it, Hickes, as Bishop of Thetford, on behalf of the minority non-juror faction that had broken away from the Church of England after the Glorious Revolution, excommunicated all but the non-juror churchmen. Benjamin Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor, wrote a reply, Preservative against the Principles and Practices of Non-Jurors; his own Erastian position was sincerely proposed as the only test of truth.

The controversy itself began very visibly and vocally when Hoadly delivered a sermon on 31 March 1717 to George I of Great Britain on The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ. His text was John 18:36, "My kingdom is not of this world" and from that, Hoadly deduced, supposedly at the request of the king himself, that there is no Biblical justification for any church government of any sort. He identified the church with the Kingdom of Heaven. It was therefore not of this world, and Christ had not delegated His authority to any representatives.

"Hoadly, in a sermon preached on March 31 1717, put forward the view that the church was not justified in having any form of government as it was concerned with matters not of this world. Sincerity of belief rather than any church structure was what mattered." Source

The reading of this one Scripture at John 18:36 became an act of civil disobedience and questioned the authority, not only of the Church, but the divine right of kings.

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Richard Dawkins on This Day in History

This day in history: Richard Dawkins was born on this day in 1941. Dawkins is a British author, biologist, evolutionist, leftist, agnostic and militant atheist. That last part may be confusing. In 2002 Richard Dawkins publicly argued for the position of militant atheism and claimed that he will not feel anything after death, however, in later years, when interviewed, he claimed that, on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is perfect faith in God and 7 is perfect confidence in atheism, he is a 6.9. Dawkins declared that he was an agnostic in 2006 and 2012. (In his book The God Delusion, Dawkins said that "permanent in agnosticism in principle" is "fence-sitting, intellectual cowardice.") 

In a debate with Giles Fraser (former Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral) Dawkins said that most Christians weren't Christian because they couldn't tell you the first book of the New Testament. Giles asked Dawkins if he could recite the full title of Darwin's Origin of the Species, and Dawkins boasted that he could. When challenged, Dawkins dithered and said: "Oh God." (The full title of Charles Darwin's book is On the The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life and evolutionists rarely cite the book's full title as it is racist.)

On February 14, 2012, an editorial in The Daily Telegraph claimed regarding the radio debate: "Dr. Fraser skewered the atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins so fabulously, so stylishly, and so thoroughly that anti-religion’s high priest was reduced to incoherent mumbling and spluttering."

Theodore Beale wrote concerning the embarrassing incident for Dawkins:

“As I have said repeatedly, Richard Dawkins is a huge intellectual fraud, and perhaps those who previously expressed incredulity at the idea that I would quite easily trounce the old charlatan in a debate will find it just a bit more credible now. This behavior isn't an outlier or a momentary lapse of memory, it is entirely characteristic. The man quite frequently pretends to knowledge that he patently does not possess and assumes he knows things that he obviously does not, which is why he avoids debate with those who are aware of his intellectual pretensions and are capable of exposing them.

It's bad enough that Dawkins couldn't come up with the name of what he considers to be the most important book ever written immediately after claiming he could do so, but in addition to stumbling a little on the subtitle, he even forgot the rather important part of the title that refers to the actual mechanism supposedly responsible!"

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King James on This Day in History

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James VI of Scotland is proclaimed King James I of England and Ireland, upon the death of Elizabeth I on this day in 1603. James was dubbed the wisest fool in Christendom.

Even though James became the impetus in what came to called the King James Bible, he did not encourage a translation of the Bible in order to enlighten the common people: his sole intent was to deny them the marginal notes of the Geneva Bible. The marginal notes of the Geneva version were what made it so popular with the common people.

James had a superficial education, and barely knew what his courtiers were talking about when they referred to classical literature etc,, and he was politically less than savvy, and made some very silly decisions out of sentiment and personal prejudice. He was inclined to praise his own knowledge too, beyond the level which was justified, since although he was educated as regards the Scottish aristocracy, there were a lot of genuine scholars among the English upper class he met after becoming king of England in 1603, who outclassed him effortlessly. As an older man, also, he had the distressing habit of picking up and promoting pretty boys, (like Robert Carr the stone mason’s apprentice, and Buckingham, his ‘Steenie’ (St Stephen), not quietly, but in the sight of his Queen and court, hanging round their necks and stroking them, calling himself their Daddy, and being generally tactless about it.

"He was a flaming homosexual. His activities in that regard have been recorded in numerous books and public records; so much so, that there is no room for debate on the subject.

The very people who use the King James Bible today would be the first ones to throw such a deviant out of the congregations.

The depravity of King James I didn't end with sodomy. James enjoyed killing animals. He called it 'hunting.' Once he killed an animal, he would literally roll about in its blood. Some believe that he practiced bestiality while the animal lay dying.

James was a sadist as well as a sodomite: he enjoyed torturing people. While King of Scotland in 1591, he personally supervised the torture of poor wretches caught up in the witchcraft trials of Scotland. James would even suggest new tortures to the examiners. One 'witch,' Barbara Napier, was acquitted. That event so angered James that he wrote personally to the court on May 10, 1551, ordering a sentence of death, and had the jury called into custody. To make sure they understood their particular offense, the King himself presided at a new hearing — and was gracious enough to release them without punishment when they reversed their verdict.

History has it that James was also a great coward. On January 7, 1591, the king was in Edinburgh and emerged from the toll booth. A retinue followed that included the Duke of Lennox and Lord Hume. They fell into an argument with the laird of Logie and pulled their swords. James looked behind, saw the steel flashing, and fled into the nearest refuge which turned out to be a skinner's booth. There to his shame, he 'fouled his breeches in fear.'" Source

*For verification of King James homosexuality, I got my info from Global Insights. You can also find more info at Otto Scott's "James I: The Fool As King" (Ross House: 1976), pp. 108, 111, 120, 194, 200, 224, 311, 353, 382; King James-VI of Scotland/I of England by Antonia Fraser (Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1975)pp. 36, 37, 38; King James VI and I by David Harris Willson, pp.36, 99; James I by his Contemporaries by Robert Ashton, p114; and A History of England by Samuel Rawson Gardiner, Vol. 4, p.112. Check also A LITERARY HISTORY OF THE BIBLE by Geddes MacGregor who has devoted a whole chapter entitled "QUEEN" JAMES.

In the Beginning, by Alister McGrath, pp. 170-71

The Mammoth Book of Private Lives by Jon E. Lewis, pp. 62,65,66

James White also makes mention of it in his book, THE KING JAMES ONLY CONTROVERSY.

See also King James and the History of Homosexuality by Michael B. Young and King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire by David Moore Bergeron, both available on amazon.com

For those people who feel that the above is a result of the attack on King James by the 17th century tobacco industry are ignorant of the fact that his behavior and personal life were quite well known to his contemporaries. "He disdained women and fawned unconscionably on his favorite men." ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA-pp. 674,675

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